Kirby Smart laments 4th-down conversion try in Georgia loss - ESPN

NEW ORLEANS — Coach Kirby Smart wasn't pointing fingers in the aftermath of a 39-34 loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, but the play that might have ultimately doomed Georgia's season was never supposed to happen.

Facing a fourth-and-2 at its own 33, Georgia initially ran its punt team onto the field. But with an Ole Miss defender on the ground, the injury stoppage gave Smart a chance to reconsider. He put his offense back on the field, he said, with an option to either try to draw the Rebels offsides or take a delay of game penalty before punting.

Instead, Georgia snapped the ball to a surprised Gunner Stockton, and Ole Miss linebacker Suntarine Perkins came unblocked off the edge for the sack.

«We had a misfire there,» Smart said. «The ball was not supposed to be snapped in that situation. That's on us as coaches.»

Ole Miss took over at the Georgia 23 and scored two plays later to extend its lead to 10 with 9:05 to go.

Smart said Georgia's analytics actually advised going for it on the fourth down, and after the Bulldogs had blown a 10-point second-half lead, he thought his team had «lost momentum,» but the look from the Ole Miss defense meant the snap shouldn't have happened.

«That's their OC's business,» Ole Miss defensive lineman Princewill Umanmielen said. «That ain't my business. I see the ball, I go.»

Georgia executed a successful fake punt on fourth down earlier in the half, when receiver Landon Roldan took a reverse handoff and threw a 16-yard pass to Lawson Luckie for a first down. That, too, Smart said, was moment in which Georgia had lost momentum and needed a jolt. The drive ended with a field goal.

On the whole, Smart said, the well-executed fake punt and the botched fourth-down play evened out.

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